HE origin of Balliol College is traced to certain payments made by John
Balliol not long after 1260 for the support of poor students at Oxford.
The founder, in expiation of some ecclesiastical offence, was con-
demned to be publicly scourged by the Bishop of Durham at his
Abbey door and also to make this academic endowment. ' John
Balliol, lord of Galloway, was the father of that John to whom King
Edward the First of England adjudged the Scottish crown in 1292.
His wife, the heiress, was Dervorguilla, grandniece to King William
the Lion. It is to her far more than to her husband that the real
foundation of the College bearing his name is due, and husband and
wife are rightly coupled together as joint-founders, the lion of
Scotland being associated with the orle of Balliol on the College
shield. A house was first hired beyond the city ditch on the north
side of Oxford, hard by the church of St. Mary Magdalen, and here
certain poor scholars were lodged and paid eightpence a day for their
commons. It was in the beginning a simple almshouse, founded on
the model already existing at Paris, it depended for its maintenance
upon the good pleasure of the founder, and possessed (so far as we
know) no sort of organization, though customs and rules were certain
to shape themselves before long without any positive enactment.'

This state of things lasted until 1282, when Devorguilla — her husband had died in 1269— took steps to place
the House of Balliol upon an established footing. In her charter she showed that the example set by the founder
of Merton College, to whose statutes the entire college system of Oxford and Cambridge owes its type, was already
bearing fruit. But unlike Merton, which was designed specially as a training school for the secular clergy,
Balliol was at first set under the joint governorship of two Proctors, one of whom was regularly a Franciscan
friar. Under them stood the Principal, or acting governor, who was elected by the Scholars of the House.
• This charter was plainly but the giving of a constitution to a society which had already formed for itself rules and
usages with respect to discipline and other matters not referred to in it. ' In a couple of years the Scholars
moved to a house bought for them a little eastward of their previous abode, and before the middle of the following
century they had so enlarged their buildings that they occupied nearly the site of the present outer-quadrangle,
and a chapel dedicated to St. Catherine — the special patron of the College— had been built. The College also
possessed a house containing four Schools intended for the performance of academic exercises, which stood on
part of the site of the existing Divinity School.

Early in the fourteenth century there seems to have been an active dispute among the Scholars as to the studies
which they were permitted to pursue. It had been expressly ordained that they should dwell in the House until
they had completed their course in Arts. It seemed therefore to follow, that it was not lawful for them to go on
to a further course of study, for instance, in Divinity, without ceasing their connexion with the House. At
length in 1325 this inference was formally ratified by the two Extraneous Masters, the successors of the original
Proctors of the house, possessed of quasi-visitatorial powers, in the presence of all the members as well as four
graduates who had formerly been Fellmus (a title which now first appears in the College muniments as a synonym
for Scholars) of the House. ' It was thus decided that Balliol should be a home exclusively of secular learning ;
and it reads as a curious presage, that thus early in the history of the college the field should be marked out
for it in which, in the fifteenth century and again in our own day, it was peculiarly to excel.'

But the Theologians soon had some compensation, for in 1340 a new endowment was given to the College by
Sir Philip Somerville for their special benefit. His statutes, however, established so complicated a system that it

[ 45—46 ]

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BALLIOL COLLEGE.

48

had after not many years to give way toa newcode drawn
up under papal authority by Simon Sudbury, Bishop of
London, in 1364. In this the old Proctors or Extraneuos
Masters survive under the name of Rectors, but the
ultimate control was left with the Bishop of London.
These Statutes continued in force until 1507 when a
new body of Statutes - the work of Bishop Foxe, of
Winchester, the founder of Corpus Christi College -
wasenacted, which remained, with small modifications,
the law of the College until 1854. The College was
now declared to possess the unique privilege of electing
its own Visitor. ' But the essential changes introduced
in the Statutes of 1507 are those which gave the
College a distinctively theological complexion, and
those which established a class of students in the
College subordinate to the Fellows.' Two Chaplain-
Fellowships were established, and all the other
Fellows, whose number was reduced, were called
upon to take Priest's Orders within four years after
their degree of M.A. 'Doubtless from the begin-
ning all the members of the foundation had been — as
indeed all University students were — clerici; but this
did not necessarily imply more than the simple taking
of the tonsure. The obligation of Priest's orders was
something very different. '

' The reduction in the number of Fellowships was
evidently made in order to provide for the lower rank
of what we should nowadays call Scholars. In the
Statutes, indeed, this name is not found, for it was
not forgotten that Fellow and Scholar meant the
same thing ; and so the old word scholasticus, which
was often used in the general sense of a "student,"
was now applied to designate those junior members
of the College for whom Scholar was too dignified a
title. They were to be "scholastics or servitors,"
not above eighteen years of age, sufficiently skilled in
plain song and grammar. One was assigned to the
Master, and one to each graduate Fellow, and was
nominated by him ; he was his private servant. The
Scholastics were to live of the remnants of the Fel-
lows' table, to apply themselves to the study of logic,
and to attend Chapel in surplices. They had also the
preference, in case of equality, in election to Fellow-
ships ' The position of these Scholars (as they came
to be called) unquestionably improved greatly in the
course of time, but the Statute affecting them was
not remodelled until 1834.

Another point of interest in the Statutes of 1507 is
the provision, authorising a practice which was not a
new one, that the College might receive boarders not
on the foundation - what we now call Commoners or
persons who pay for their commons and rooms — on
the condition of their following a prescribed course of
study ; and the fact of their receiving no allowance
seems to have given them a choice of rooms They
represented the aristocratic element in the College,
and were in time distinguished by rank, fees, and
privileges in hall, as Commoners and Fellow
Commoners. 'The Master, Fellows, and Scholastics
were bound on Sundays and Feast-days to attend
matins, with lauds, mass, vespers, and compline ;
and any Fellow who absented himself was liable to a
fine of twopence, while Scholastics were punished
with a flogging or otherwise at the discretion of the
Master and Dean . . . The Bible or one of the
Fathers was to be read in hall during dinner, and all
conversation to be in Latin, unless addressed to one —
presumably a guest or a servant — ignorant of the
language. French was not permitted as it was at

Queen's The gates of the College were

closed at nine in summer and eight in winter, and

the keys deposited with the Master until the morn-
ing;' and so late as the middle of the eighteenth
century the Dean was wont to visit the under-
graduates' rooms at nine o'clock at night ' to see
that they kept good hours.' ' Whoever spent the night
out of College or entered except by the gate, was
punished, a Fellow by a fine of twelve pence, a
Scholastic by a flogging.' •

Among the famous men who belonged to Balliol
during the earlier centuries of its history, we may
mention Richard FitzRalph, Archbiship of Armagh
(1347-1360), the strenuous antagonist of the Mendi-
cant Orders ; John Wycliffe, the reformer, who was
Master of the College in 1360; Humphrey, Duke of
Gloucester, brother to King Henry V., the second
founder of the University Library ; \\ illiam Grey,
Chancellor of the University, Bishop of Ely, and '
Lord Treasurer ; George Montagu, Archbishop of
York, who was Chancellor of the University in 1453
when still in his twenty-second year, and who sig-
nalised his installation by a banquet, of which the
particulars are preserved, of unheard-of profusion ;
and John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, no less famous
as a collector of books than infamous by his cruelty
as High Constable of England.

Of these William Grey stands in a peculiarly close
relation with the College. He spent many years in
study at Cologne and in Italy. In 1449 he settled in
Rome, as proctor for King Henry VI., where he
lived ' an honoured member of the learned society in
the papal city, and continued to collect manuscripts
and to have them transcribed and illuminated under
his eyes, until he was recalled in 1454 to the Bishopric
of Ely.' After his return to England, while he was
not regardless of the affairs of State ' his paramount
interest still lay in his books and his circle of scholars,
himself credited with a knowledge not only of Greek
but of Hebrew. It was his desire that his library
should be preserved within the walls of his old College.
One of its members, Robert Abdy, heartily co-operated
with him, and the books— some two hundred in
number, and including a printed copy of Josephus —
were safely housed in a new building erected for the
purpose, probablyjust before the Bishop's death in 1478.
Many of the codices were unhappily destroyed during
the reign of King Edward the Sixth, and by Wood's
time few of the miniatures in the remaining volumes
had escaped mutilation. But it is a good testimony
to the loyal spirit in which the College kept the trust
committed to them, that no less than a hundred and
fifty-two of Grey's manuscripts are still in its possession.

' Part of the building in which the library was to
find a home was already in existence. The ground-
floor and perhaps the dining-hall (now the library
reading-room) adjoining, are attributed to Thomas
Chase, who had been Master from 1412 to 1423, and
was Chancellor of the University from 1426 to 1430 ; '
but the upper part of the library was expressly built for
the purpose of receiving Bishop Grey's books, and it
was the work of Abdy, who as Fellow and then, from
1477 to 1494, as Master devoted himself, not without
substantial aid from the Bishop, to the enlargement
and adornment of the College buildings.

During the two centuries following the reign of
King Edward the Third, the College had received
little or no addition to its corporate endowments,
though it had been largely helped by donations
towards its buildings, and above all by the foundation
of its precious library. The Fellowships were open
without limitation of place of birth or bringing-up ;
and in only a few was there a preference permitted in

doorway in quadrangle. — Mackenzie and Pugin.

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BALLIOL COLLEGE.

52

favour of a particular locality. Still, no doubt, the College ' was a very close corporation, for Fellow nominated
Scholar, and out of the Scholars the Fellows were generally elected.' The four generations following the accession
of Queen Elizabeth saw the College enriched with a number of new benefactions, all (with the exception of the
Fellowship and Scholarships founded by Elizabeth, Lady Periam), distinguished from the older endowments by
restriction to a particular place or school. Among these the Fellowship and Scholarship — afterwards two of each
order — founded by Peter Blundell in connexion with his school at Tiverton deserve to be noticed. ' After the
Restoration two separate benefactions set up that close connexion between the College and Scotland which saved
Balliol from sinking into utter obscurity in the century following, and which has since contributed to it a large
share of its later fame. Bishop Warner of Rochester, who died in 1666, bequeathed to the College the annual
sum of eighty pounds for the support of four scholars from Scotland, to be chosen by the Archbishop of Canterbury
and the Bishop of Rochester; and about ten years later certain Exhibitions were founded by Mr. John Snell for
persons nominated by Glasgow University. . . . Their importance in the history of the College cannot be
over-estimated, and it is to them that it owes such names among its members as Adam Smith, Sir William
Hamilton, and Archbishop Tait, to say nothing of a great company of distinguished Scotsmen now living.'
During the present reign the College has been able to establish a number of Scholarships for proficiency in the
newer studies of Law, Modern History, and Natural Science out of a fund endowed for the purpose by Miss
Hannah Brakenbury ; and two Exhibitions of ^100 a year each have been founded under the will of Richard
Jenkyns, formerly Master, which are awarded by examination to members of the College, and the list of holders
of which is of exceptional brilliancy.

In the first days of the College its members had to attend the parish Church of St. Mary Magdalen on all
festivals ; they had not a Chapel licensed for the celebration of the Mass until 1364. A new Chapel was built in
the reign of King Henry VIII. but was destroyed under the Mastership of Dr. Scott, when the present Chapel
was erected on its site. Various blocks of buildings, which form what is called the garden quadrangle, grew up
by degrees from the early part of last century until fifteen years ago, when they were completed by the erection of
a new dining-hall suited to the requirements of what has become one of the largest Colleges in Oxford. Not
long before this the whole of the outer quadrangle and the Master's lodgings were also taken down and rebuilt in
a style, and on a scale, which are considered to harmonise ill with those of the rest of the College.

The history of Palliol during the centuries

bell TOWER, ST. ALBAN hall. — From Ingram.

following the Reformation offers few points
of interest. The College seems to have
been long in recovering from the misfor-
tunes into which it fell after the great civil